Anywhere you find yourself in Amish/Pennsylvania Dutch country, you are bound to find the one or more of the large “Dutch-cooking” family restaurants. Across Ohio we have a handful of Der Dutchmen in addition to more stand-alone country cookin’ restaurants. If you’re traveling with a large group (like we were), then these restaurants are a godsend because they have huge seating areas, plenty of food that is restocked constantly, and servers that are accustomed to big families. Seriously, we walked up on a busy Saturday and asked for a table for 15 and the host didn’t even blink.

One of the bonuses of finding an Amish-cooking restaurant: the donuts. You will generally find them in a restaurant and in a separate bakery space. They are soft, generously frosted, cream-filled delights, most likely because they’re made with lard.

Prepare yourself for gratuitous breakfast buffet pictures ahead. There’s no easy way to capture the full buffet experience, with its stacks of plates and steaming trays and busy lines. So I snapped pictures of everything. They had all the standards: pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, toast.

Plus the buffet version of French toast: sticks.

What’s more interesting are the interesting regional specialties like pan pudding, cornmeal cakes, and chipped beef.

What did draw our attention were the nutty cinnamon rolls. This is one of those rare moments when a buffet’s consistent heating of the food really pays off. The constant warmth keep the rolls soft and sticky, and the blend of cinnamon, sugar, and walnuts really hit the nail on the head.

And if you’re in eastern PA then you need to have some scrapple. I was pleasantly surprised by the buffet scrapple. It was fried crispy without getting soggy, and it was seasoned well. Of course, if the scrapple is going to be good anywhere, it had better be in eastern Pennsylvania, buffet or not.

Yessssssss! There were those donuts at the buffet, too! Worth the price of admission alone.

Plate #2. French toast sticks, regular French toast, scrapple, and a cinnamon roll.

The Lititz Family Cupboard doesn’t stand out too much from similar restaurants, but it served our purpose and had a few bright spots. The servers were super on-the-spot, the buffet was stocked quickly, and it served up plenty of comfort food. It would be a great start to a day exploring Lititz, just named Budget Travel’s Coolest Small Town in America!

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Good morning, Dr. Breakfast!

Hi, I'm Nick. You can call me "Dr. Breakfast." I'm a fan of breakfast, brunch, coffee, and donuts. Also: coffee, beer, bourbon, travel, and our city of Columbus, Ohio. I also never turned down a good T-shirt or coffee mug.